• The Author – Bart Busschots

  

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Next Tuesday Santa finally comes for the Mac faithful when Steve Jobs takes the stage for his Mac World 2008 keynote. Each year I like to make an idiot of myself by trying to predict what santa Steve will deliver for us, so, here I go again! I’m gonna start by putting my neck on the line straight away. I think the focus for this keynote will be home entertainment. I think the reports about video rentals will turn out to be correct and I think there’ll be more to it than what has been reported this week. I wouldn’t be at all surprised if the Apple TV got a make-over and a new lease of life. Some are even predicting that Apple will sell TVs with Apple TV built in. I’m not convinced, but it’s possible I guess.

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Tagged with: Apple • media event

Something I’ve spent quote a bit of time thinking about during my years as a student, then lab assistant (AKA demonstrator), and finally occasional lecturer with the computer science department in NUI Maynooth, is how students should be introduced to computer science and programming. I’ve seen all sorts of tactics tried over the past 14 years. The absolute worst tactic I’ve seen is the abandonment programming from first year computer science program altogether. Another disaster in my opinion was the introduction objects before the introduction of basic constructs like conditional statements and loops, the confusion that cased was monumental. I have been involved with final year undergraduate projects for much of my time with the department and have seen first-hand the effects of some of the different approaches. No one seems to be able to agree on how best to start computer science students programming, but something no one can argue with is that any system that results in final year honours students being unable to program is fundamentally flawed.

[tags]computer programming, education[/tags]

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What is it with the RIAA that they believe that the way to get more customer loyalty is to sue their customers? Do they think people LIKE being sued? How exactly does criminalising, alienating, and literally prosecuting your customers possibly help business? I know record chiefs are out of touch with reality some what but the RIAA seem to be from an entirely different planet. They just don’t get it. I thought I’d seen it all, but I was wrong. Now the RIAA are litigating against people who rip CDs they bought legally for purely personal use. That, apparently is now also illegal and worthy of the RIAA’s wrath. Yup, us nice people who pay for our music and want to put it on our MP3 players are now targets for litigation too. Man, I can really feel my love for the music industry growing. For more check out this article from the Washington Post.

[tags]RIAA, ass-hats[/tags]